


small and hidden away

by brokenlittleboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (talks about it), Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mark of Cain, Season Ten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 10:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3484487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenlittleboy/pseuds/brokenlittleboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When hunts and marks and other stresses threaten to drown Sam completely, he turns to little anxiety-reducers like sitting under a burning shower for far too long. This time, Dean steps in and finds him curled on the floor, and the first heart-to-heart in what feels like years ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	small and hidden away

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because I had an anxiety attack of my own because of dysphoria. Writing Sam going through something similar and having someone to comfort him (I don't) worked as a sort of therapy, so that's the story behind this fic.

It had been another day. Another hunt finished, another wound earned, another monster killed. **  
**

And, as always, the monster wasn’t some four-legged beast covered in fur, growling and drooling and intent on mauling as many people as possible. It was a person. A speaking, emoting, vampire, one among a den Sam and Dean had found, and he’d begged for his life as Dean had swung a machete, like he was up at bat and the vampire’s head was just another ball to hit.

It shook Sam more than he’d care to admit. Yes, the vampire had been killing people. He had to be brought down, along with all the others he’d been living with. He thought that after doing this for years, systematically tracking down creatures and ending them, it would mean nothing to him. He hid it well, sure, covered the shaking of his hands by keeping them under the faucet longer than necessary and distracting himself with other worries.

Like Dean. The mark had such a profound effect on him, turning him into a focused spot of fire and malice, intent on destruction. It washed away his remorse and second thoughts as slowly and surely as a river wears down a stone, persistently removing what made him  _Dean_  from himself. Every hunt seemed a little worse, even if Dean claimed he was doing better, and Sam felt like he was losing his brother as well as himself, drowning in the blood of everyone he’d ever killed.

It was times like these, when it got to be too much, that he turned to old habits, anxiety-reducing tricks he’d learned after Dean’s hell and after his own hell, things Dean didn’t know about.

He was sitting on the shower floor, the entire room saturated with steam. He’d turned the water as hot as it could go, and it fucking hurt, but it was a distracting hurt, turning his skin red and then stark white. He used to this on a weekly basis, burning Lucifer’s ice out of his system, but as more time passed he tried to abandon it before Dean caught on.

Shaking minutely and endlessly, he wrapped his arms around his legs and put his forehead on his knee, closing his eyes and breathing in shakily, trying to fill the little empty nooks inside him with something and failing. The water hit his back, unforgivingly, unendingly, and he knew he’d been in too long, this couldn’t possibly be good for him, but he wasn’t okay. Not right now. He was not technically in one piece, and he couldn’t get himself to leave. Maybe this was unraveling him further. Maybe he was the stone, this time, being worn away, but he couldn’t get himself to care. His mind was clogged and full of toxic thoughts about himself and monsters and the mark of fucking Cain and he shivered despite the searing heat, refusing to let the moisture beading around his eyes escape his eyelids.

He heard Dean’s muffled voice call his name outside the bathroom, concerned, and not a beat later the door opened and Dean came in. Sam didn’t look up, instead hugging his legs closer to himself, and waited for Dean to speak. He was too tired to do anything else.

Dean sighed, long and slow, and the shower door shook in its frame as Dean sank down and sat against it, only inches from Sam.

“I thought you were done with this,” Dean said softly.

This rattled Sam, but he couldn’t get himself to speak, to ask why Dean never did anything, because that was selfish. That wasn’t how they worked. Dean had his reasons.

At his silence, Dean spoke again, shifting a little against the foggy glass. “No, no, I don’t like this. I don’t like my little brother mute and curled up in a burning hot shower without telling me what’s wrong.”

Sam couldn’t stop the sniffle that escaped from him, and he sort of hated himself for it, for displaying that emotion. But maybe his head wasn’t in the right place. Dean had the right to his voice, to know what was going on, and Sam owed him that much.

Which made the fact his throat refused to work even more frustrating. All he could do was sit there shaking, raising his neck slightly and peering over at Dean from under his hair and behind the relative safety of his gangly legs, waiting for Dean to come to some kind of a decision.

He was startled when Dean stood up and started unbuttoning his shirt, slipping it off and then his undershirt, letting them drop in a pile at his feet. He undid his belt and dropped his jeans, stepping out of them and hopping a little. His boxers were next, and Sam’s face reddened more, if possible. He smashed his forehead back against his skin and squeezed his eyes shut tight, hoping to give Dean some kind of privacy.

The shower door opened and Dean stepped in, hissing at the heat of the water and reaching to adjust the knob and make it cooler. The temperature became tolerable and Sam wanted to ask Dean to turn it back, to turn around and leave and let Sam simmer until his skin came off in sluices.

Instead, he stayed silent and perfectly still as Dean sat down next to him, grunting softly and knees cracking. Dean mimicked his position and put his own arms around his legs. They were touching in a line, shoulder to waist to knee to foot, and Dean was warm but not burning.

“It’s not hell this time. I know it’s not. And I’m sorry if you wanna deal with this alone, I guess I’m done with that. So we’re going to sit here until you can say something, okay, Sammy?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Sam croaked weakly, surprising himself. He wanted to fold himself smaller, but knew he couldn’t, angry at his height and his mass. He thought eating less or not at all would do something but it seemed he would always be too big for his soul and mind, packed with tainted blood and empty space.

Dean laughed shortly, a self-deprecating sound. They were both talking like wounded animals. “Of course I do. How long… how long’s this been going on? And what is it? Please talk to me. Please.”

“My head’s not in the right place,” Sam whispered, and he knew he must sound off, curled up into a little red ball and voice muffled by his skin.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said easily, carefully wrapping an arm around Sam’s waist. “I wanna hear what that head of yours has to say.”

“It’s just… this is a thing I do, okay? Burn away the cold and then burn away all the other feelings. That’s what I’m doing.”

“I know,” Dean told him softly, his hand going up and down in little soothing movements, from Sam’s hips to his ribs and back again. “What I want you to tell me is why.”

Sam shuddered. “You… it’s okay, really. I’m fine. You have other things to worry about.” He buried his head a little deeper down, letting his hair slip down and hide his face.

Dean sighed again. “Jesus,” he murmured. “Look… I know we’re not- I know we don’t talk as much, don’t touch as much, but it doesn’t have to be like that, alright? I’m not the best at this baring-your-soul shit but… I, uh, I think we both need it. And I’d like us to be closer, okay? I mean, after everything— we’re on good terms, right?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah.”

Dean seemed to sag a little in relief. “Good. Being with you makes the mark lessen up a little, too. Seems my boy is a little bit of a cure or something.”

He’d been aiming to make Sam smile but frowned when Sam stiffened instead, locking up drawing in his elbows.

“Is that what this is about?” Dean prodded, eyes widening. “Is this about the mark?” he asked, quieter, poking Sam in the side to garner a reaction.

Sam picked up his head a fraction, encouraged by Dean’s little ministrations. He looked at Dean but quickly looked away, staring holes in the shower tiles. “It’s changing you,” he started, voice thick. He swallowed. “Every hunt is a little worse. I don’t think you notice. You lose parts of yourself. I’m just a little tired of losing you every couple of months, is all.” He lost confidence as he went on, feeling like a child, voice weakening progressively.

He heard Dean make a sound like all the air was being forced out of him, and then the arm around his waist got tighter, pressing Sam up against his brother. Dean tilted his head to rest against Sam’s shoulder and stayed there for a moment, letting his actions speak for him first.

“I do notice, trust me,” he whispered, his words thready and tenuous. “And it scares the shit outta me. I do so many things I don’t mean to do. Like not noticing when you’re hurting, for instance.”

“It’s okay,” Sam said immediately, and Dean scoffed. Dean’s hand splayed wide on his back, protectively, before rubbing little circles into his skin. Sam couldn’t help but lean back into Dean, his heartbeat slowing down. The scent of Dean was all around him, working like a time-tested safety blanket.

“I should’ve seen what this was doing to you, how you’ve been crying out. I’ve been a little selfish, and you’re gonna say that’s fine, but it’s not. Not when my baby brother is getting second degree burns in a shower alone at midnight, okay? We… we need to talk more, so I need your help with that because I suck at it. I want to be on the same page as you. Neither of us is going to survive if we’re not in this together.”

“We are,” Sam told him, looking up in earnest this time, drips of water from his hair running little rivulets in his skin.

Dean smiled down at him, softly, something private and raw, something Sam hadn’t seen in years. It was one of those little fond moments that he’d used to treasure, a look Dean reserved for him. Sam smiled back out of reflex, his eyes getting red and glassy again, and Dean yanked him closer, almost roughly, pressing a kiss to the crown of Sam’s head. “I needed this too,” he muttered against Sam’s hair, “it’s alright, I promise.”

Sam moved slightly and Dean moved away, pulling back and looking Sam in the eye, biting his lip. Sam flashed a watery smile and looked down. “Thank you,” he said earnestly, and it was as if this whole time they’d been heading toward something, a culmination. It felt like all the old gears in his head had been oiled and were starting to move again, and he and Dean were clicking solidly back into place, two halves of one whole soul.

Dean patted him on the back in response, sliding the last little pieces of themselves into place. They could do this. Whatever shards they’d lost in the past few years were cleaned up, and Sam felt silly for thinking he was riddled with empty holes, when really he’d been waiting for Dean to fill those places like he always had. Like he was now.

“Think I can convince you to come out of here and to bed?” Dean asked him, shaking him out of his thoughts, and Sam nodded, blushing.

Dean smiled. “Good,” he said, standing up and turning the water off, and the burn was gone.


End file.
